Timeline for What parts of the human brain can a truth serum modify to prevent lying?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 3, 2023 at 17:44 | vote | accept | Rhymehouse | ||
| Nov 30, 2023 at 16:57 | comment | added | Starfish Prime | Preventing lying is easy... destroy Broca's area. Forcing them to tell the truth afterwards is rather tricky, mind you... | |
| Nov 30, 2023 at 16:33 | comment | added | Robert Rapplean | @JBH, Go ahead and pull out the hammer. This site has become a walled garden for only the anointed weeds anyway. On deeper analysis, humans use fabrication to fill in all of their uncertainties in the best of circumstances. That's the nature of confabulation, and it's why it's really difficult to get consistent reports of auto accidents. If you completely block lying, the people wouldn't be able to put together the pieces of normal life. | |
| Nov 30, 2023 at 6:58 | comment | added | JBH | @RobertRapplean Which, now that you force me to think about it in a new light, almost makes this question opinion-based brainstorming since every answer can be considered equally correct - it's just a matter of mixing up the ideas in an aesthetically pleasing way. Don't make me think about this too much. I've been wielding Mjölnir a lot tonight. | |
| Nov 30, 2023 at 6:55 | comment | added | JBH | @RobertRapplean Semantics. Using a hammer is also a skill... and you need to choose to use the skill. The only things in life that aren't skills are human autonomic functions... and there are a fair number of people in the world who can demonstrate that even those can be developed as skills. I don't address the use of imagination in my answer because I'd already loaded it with three options. Frankly, every aspect of the brain could be used in a story to rationalize a truth serum. It's just a matter of connecting dots in a cool way. | |
| Nov 30, 2023 at 4:58 | comment | added | Robert Rapplean | @JBH, Lying isn't a choice. It's a skill. This particular skill relies upon our future-simulation centers and imagination capacity. You can't lie if you can't make things up. You can't lie convincingly if you can't compare your fabrications to what might actually exist. You won't lie unless you're motivated to do so, and motivations are heavily hormonal. Try this on for size: If you're delusional and you describe reality as you perceive it, are you lying? | |
| Nov 30, 2023 at 4:25 | answer | added | JBH | timeline score: 4 | |
| Nov 30, 2023 at 2:14 | answer | added | Monty Wild♦ | timeline score: 4 | |
| Nov 30, 2023 at 0:48 | comment | added | JBH | I'm not entirely sure we understand the brain well enough to answer this question to the expectation of science-based. Lying is a choice. For those low on the sociopathic scale, the effort of lying changes body dynamics (useful for polygraph operators). For those high on the sociopathic scale, the concept of lying doesn't really exist, there's only the momentary truth that achieves a desired goal. Interesting question, though. I have a thought, but it's a science-fiction level rationalization rather than a science-based explanation. Is that acceptable? | |
| Nov 29, 2023 at 22:07 | comment | added | Escaped dental patient. | There's an interesting and somewhat related article on method actors getting a brain scan you may find informative/interesting and the implications - possibly confounding. | |
| Nov 29, 2023 at 22:01 | comment | added | Robert Rapplean | Are you looking for generalized structure names? Serums hit everything at once, so you would be affecting a specific set of receptors, not actual physical structures. If you are doing near-future fiction, you could have your bad guys scan the person's brain, then use electromagnets to activate a chemical in a targeted area, but you can't directly target physical locations with just a serum. | |
| Nov 29, 2023 at 21:53 | history | asked | Rhymehouse | CC BY-SA 4.0 |